Word: violettas
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...known as the star of several fine recordings, including Madame Butterfly (RCA Victor) and Capriccio (Angel). As Verdi's consumptive heroine, she demonstrated last week that her acting is almost as good as her voice. Strikingly handsome in a hoopskirted, bare-shouldered, pink ball gown, she made the Violetta of Act I into a moving figure of feverishly hectic gaiety. As the opera progressed, the coquettish attitudes gave way gradually, until by the final act Violetta emerged as a woman of tragic stature. Throughout, the radiant, controlled voice lent a superb air of emotional conviction to the great arias...
...script, asking for the name of the character in Verdi's La Traviata who sings Sempre libera. "She sings it right at the end of a party given by . . ." whispered the sweating Van Doren at the time. "What's her name! Soprano. Her name is like . . . Violetta! Violetta...
...weeks with only occasional explosions of temperament. Both performances attracted capacity crowds, and Callas endowed both of them with the kind of artistry, witchery and passion that only she can convey. The Dallas Traviata used an intriguing gimmick by presenting the story as a long flashback, starting with Violetta on her deathbed visualizing the episodes leading up to her final illness. From the first curtain, when a soft light bloomed on the reclining Violetta, to the resignation of Dite alia giovine and the yearning of Parigi, O cara, Callas held her audience in a kind of hushed trance. Her tones...
...imaginatively conceived and many-faceted Aïda. Now slimmed down from what she called her troppo robusta dimensions ("I lose 25 pounds in three years!"), she is better able to cope with bantam-sized tenors and the visual realities of such consumptive roles as Mimi and Violetta...
Callas' own performance had the familiar virtues and faults: warmth and purity in the lower and middle registers, edginess and wobble in the upper ones. But she infused the character of Violetta with ardency, hectic gaiety and a dampened passion that flickered through the role like a wayward fever. Her deathbed agonies had the quiet poignancy and the ring of truth that so often evade lesser artists. All in all, Callas gave the Met its most exciting Traviata in years, and demonstrated again that she has lost none of the turbulent appeal that can magnetize an audience...